Khushboo's one-time co-star Sarath Kumar, who is secretary of the Tamil Cine Actors Association senses a North-South, English-Tamil divide in the episode. He recalls that Khushboo not only defended her initial statements but wondered if all Tamils were chaste. "That hurt the people. Sania Mirza or Aamir Khan do not know this context." The actor also refers to the culture of the rural Tamil society. "Beyond Chennai, we still have villages where panchayats punish people by making them ride on donkeys. You have to be sensitive about how you address this public." Such a feudal culture has in fact been valorised by Tamil cinema, many of them starring Sarath and Khushboo.
V. Geetha, feminist and social historian, offers a nuanced reading into the actions and silences of the Tamil and the English public. "The so-called liberal support extended to Khushboo is limited. It reflects both a genuine bewilderment at the intolerance that sections of the Tamil media as well as politicians have shown towards views that appear inimical to them. It also indicates an arrogant righteousness: it gives the English-speaking classes a chance to get disdainful about Tamil politicians and the Dravidian parties. It is also true they don't get this involved over issues of free speech and dignity that affect poorer, less visible and less articulate sections of society."
What has given legitimacy to the protests is that magistrates across Tamil Nadu have eagerly admitted private complaints against Khushboo and Suhasini. (Very few of these complaints have been filed by the DPI or the PMK.) For instance, Chinnappa Thamizhar, owner of a publishing house in Chennai, has filed a complaint with a city court, accusing Suhasini of portraying Tamils in a bad light. More than 35 such cases have been filed against the two actresses. Advocate P.V.S. Giridhar of Campaign for Saner Chennai believes this is an abuse of the judicial process. "When private complaints are filed directly without going to the police, the magistrate has to dismiss it if there is no sufficient ground for proceeding. We are planning to submit a citizen's petition to the chief justice on this issue." Adds Geetha: "This is really sexual repression trying to find for itself legal cause and action." After all, the lower judiciary does not of course spring into similar action in more socially significant cases.
Khushboo has somewhere hit close to home with her views: answering to generalised male fears about unbridled female sexuality in times of great change and uncertainty. And by being pragmatic about sex and its aftermath, she has also shown up sexual hypocrisy for what it is. Deliberately or inadvertently.
